The Polish Football Association (PZPN) has defended its use of the word “pogrom” to describe Poland’s 4-0 defeat of Israel on Monday.

Six minutes before the end of the match, when Damian Kadzior score the hosts’ fourth goal of the night, the PZPN social media team wrote on Facebook: “Goooooal! This is already a pogrom! We are beating Israel 4-0!”

The post was later amended to remove the word, but it caused anger among anti-racism campaigners, who said it contrasted with a tolerant atmosphere inside the stadium itself.

The word “pogrom” historically refers to the persecution of Jews, initially in the Russian Empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and subsequently in other parts of Ukraine and Poland.

But the PZPN said the word, which derives from the Russian verb “to destroy”, is often used in Poland to describe sweeping sporting victories.

“Maybe in this match, [it] was awkwardly used, because as you can see it raises unnecessary emotions, but that is in no way what we wanted,” a spokesperson, Jakub Kwiatkowski, said on Tuesday.

But Rafal Pankowski, head of the Polish “Never Again” Association — told The Algemeiner website that the word showed “opened the floodgates” to comments about Holocaust imagery and jokes about gas.

“In contrast to the supporters good conduct, the use of the word ‘pogrom’ in a post about the game shows a complete lack of sensitivity in the Polish Football Association’s communications department,” he said.